Daily HealthBeat Tip

Getting the kids to go.

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I'm Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Summertime, and the kids should be out playing. That's not to say they are, of course. And to Dr. William Strong, that's a shame. The emeritus professor at the Medical College of Georgia cochaired a panel that reviewed the impact of physical activity on children's health.

The review, for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says kids should get at least an hour of moderate to vigorous activity a day. Not that they do:

"Surveys would demonstrate that the majority of children are not getting close to this amount of activity. And there are a lot of barriers to this: the TV, the video games, the Internet, the telephone." (12 seconds)

Strong says calorie-burning, healthful exercise can be fun and games. Fun and games that do the job include soccer, basketball and jumping rope.

Learn more at www.hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: August 30, 2005

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